RWDB

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Freedom of the Press Perv

ANTHONY Dillon has expressed common sense on the topic of speech about race (“Don’t confuse the right to discuss race matters openly with racial hatred”, 2/6). There is no doubt that the phrase racial hatred has too often been unfairly invoked to the detriment of free speech on issues involving ethnicity. Moreover, defenders of vilification laws rarely acknowledge the importance of free speech and tend to sidestep analysis of the contexts in which speech on race has been unjustly suppressed.
Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

The phrase racial hatred, when applied to Nigel Jackson is hardly unfair.
As AIJAC noted some years ago

The new Canberra based political journal Australian National Review claims to be the "voice of mainstream conservatism in Australia" and carried Nigel Jackson as their feature columnist in their July 1996 edition. Nigel Jackson is no newcomer to the world of right wing politics. In fact he is one of the leading ideologues of the notorious Australian League of Rights, Australia's lead ing anti-Semitic and racist organisation.

Jackson's most recent work is The Case For David Irving. Published by Veritas Publishing Company, the League of Rights' West ern Australian publishing house, it provides a textual analysis of the international Jewish conspiracy against Mr Irving and how the Holocaust never occurred. Jackson writes "If we value our freedom, we must retain our right to criticise undue Jewish influence in our nation." A claim which he combines with numerous crackpot theories about scheming Jews, international Zionism and of course the old favourite "gas chamber fabrication."
If that sets alarm bells ringing, take a look at Mr Jackson's self published books of collected poetry. Jackson, a former English teacher at Carey Grammar, seems to have an unusual preoccupation with young girls and their sexuality. In The Hare and the Rowan, Mr Jackson dedicates one tract "To My Lesbia":

Her young breast tipsily lifting
with surprise
Their thickening tips;
Her dress about her hips.

If you want more, take a look at "Tech. Girl at School Swimming Sports," which common decency prevents us from reprinting. At least one parent wrote to the Principal of Carey Baptist Grammar complaining about the "unhealthy emphasis, urging on obsession, with matters sexual" of the HSC English master. Another wrote to the school complaining about his advocacy of racist views to students. Nigel is no longer at Carey, although you can catch him in the pages of the Australian National Review. Don't laugh. His column is called "Intellectual Freedom".

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Bad Terrorist. No Virgins.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Little Miss Oginy

A sign calling Julia Gillard a witch? Outrage. Speeches in parliament citing a culture of misogyny and demanding Tony Abbott's head. For a sign held by a stranger at a demonstration.

So we should expect similar outrage over this charming placard from last-weekend's demonstration.

Somehow I don't expect Tanya Plibersek and the 'Handbag Hitsquad' getting too worked up about it.

See the idiots in the background wearing (or not) Guy Fawkes masks made famous in the movie V for Vendetta? I wonder if the anti-corporationey types know that every purchase of those masks is money straight to Time Warner, owner of the image.

Update: When "bestselling author" Antony Loewenstein was invited as a speaker to the demo, I was wondering if he'd manage to blame the Australian budget on a Zionist conspiracy. Antony didn't disappoint.

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have furthered this trend because Labor assisted the groundwork, sharing the same neo-liberal agenda. These politicians mostly go to the same parties, attend the same think-tank events and romance the same reporters. It’s a cosy club that gets a warm reception in the US and Israeli embassies.

and any other Embassy hosting a party or think-tank event. The warm reception is called diplomacy. But a fiendish Zionist conspiracy is so much more exciting, isn't it?

Twitter isn't an author or a journalist. Those are both careers which require a basic understanding of punctuation that Loewenstein lacks. When asked by the Sydney Morning Herald, Loewestein wrote, of Twitter:

It allows me to connect with people around the world who I wouldn’t normally speak to – journalists, activists, writers, dissidents, and because I write about issues in the Middle East or issues of immigration detention in Australia, I find invaluable information from writers to refugees to activists who don’t normally have a voice in mainstream media.

That's a single sentence.

Loewenstein adds:

I tweet a lot. But I do have a rule that I don't talk about my personal life, partner, family or where I'm going.

I wonder if Loewy's presentation three presentations to the Writers Festival will pack the room as hard as he did in his address to the "Australian Society of Authors" which even managed to clear the stage.

I’m happy that this title continues to generate debate in the Arab world where a dissident Jewish, atheist voice isn’t too often heard.

In some Arab countries, Jews are forbidden from entering the country. In others, they are simply massacred. No wonder they aren't heard from. There's not many atheists elsewhere who would simultaneously describe themselves as Jewish either.

As for the "debate" being generated by his book?

In 2013 my first book My Israel Question was translated and published in Arabic by the Lebanese-based publisher All Prints. The name was changed to Cases Against Israel.

The Arabs have answered his Israel Question well and truly. HIs original publishers Melbourne University Press apparently couldn't.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Allah Einstein

A batshit-crazy learned Iranian cleric has claimedthat Albert Einstein was a Muslim.

Ayatolla Mahadavi Kani, described as the head of the Assembly of Experts in the Islamic Republic of Iran, who says that there are documents proving the Jewish scientist embraced Shiite Islam and was an avid follower of Ja'far Al-Sadiq, an eighth-century Shi'i imam.

In the video, Kani quotes Einstein as saying that when he heard about the ascension of the prophet Mohammed, "a process which was faster than the speed of light," he realized "this is the very same relativity movement that Einstein had understood."

Even his name sounds Muslim! It was obvious.

I guess this is one way to prop up the otherwise practically non-existent intellectual output from the Arab-Muslim world. The site's down at present but Masada2000 noted:

There are a mere 12 Million Jews in the entire world yet they have received 185 Nobel Prizes.

The Muslims number 1.4 Billion, or 117 times the number of Jews! Based upon this 117:1 Muslim-to-Jewish ratio, one might expect the Muslims to have 24,920 Nobel Laureates.They have nine! and one of them [Arafat] was a murderer

Smug, Aren't They?

Herald readers have been too polite so far, but I’ll say it. Bogan-land is a borderless area occupied by Daily Telegraph readers.

Alan Carruthers Artarmon

I'm not sure if Mr Carruthers has picked up a copy of the Tele in the last decade, but as someone who reads three newspapers daily, I can say that had he read today's he would have seen every single one of the letters therein were far more relevant to the readership than the banal attempts at wit filling space in the Silly.

Yes, ten years ago the Tele was typically full of spelling errors in the brief section that wasn't the sport of the form guide. However many remaining Herald readers seem to have missed the substantial decline in calibre of that publication over the years.

Meanwhile, startup lefty publication The Saturday Paper has (literally) plastered these signs all over the inner-city.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Where do I Sign?

The Greens NSW (GNSW) is seeking an individual with a wide range of skills. The Executive Officer is a newly created position. It will be the most senior employed position in the NSW Greens. It is not a political position, or a party spokesperson position. It is an executive and managerial role.

Plus you get to hang out with Sarah Hanson-Young and talk about TV shows.